Taking my daughter to school just now I was pulled up in a queue of traffic at a light. On my left two young (young by my standards, and I’m in the “everyone under 25 looks 12 to me” stage of life) guys in tricked out Dodge Chargers are racing each other down the empty turn lane and pull in front of traffic as the light was changing (i think they probably missed it and ran the red, but couldn’t say for sure). Much to the satisfaction of everyone waiting at the light, they didn’t notice there was cop at the front of the queue of traffic who immediately turned on his lights and siren and tried to pull them over.
While the first guy immediately pulls over his mate (or guy he just randomly decided to race as they passed each other in tricked out Dodge Chargers, maybe there is an assumed contract by tricked out Dodge Charger owners that this must happen?) keeps going and the cop pursues him. The first guy sits for a while pulled over looking sheepish (long enough for me to pass him after the light changes), then realizing the cop has now pursued the other guy out of sight starts driving off slowly.
Did he commit a crime by driving off? I’ve no idea if the cop had the chance to say anything to him before head off after his mate. Whether or not he did, is he facing a ticket in practice (assuming he slowly drives home without encountering the cop again), or has the other the guy driving off meant he got off scot free?
Without seeing it or knowing the laws in your state I would say no crime other than the original motor vehicle violations. He yielded to the emergency vehicle. He didn’t elude. He wasn’t being detained.
Yeah but what’s involved in that resulting in an actual ticket? Is the cop going to take time out of his day to fill in a bunch of paperwork and then actually go to his address on file to give him a ticket? What are the chances the cop will do that? (I assume it depends a lot on whether he caught the other guy?) Or can he just write the ticket as if he was still parked in front of him, and he’ll get it in the mail?
Probably extremely low. I’m thinking more of a “If I ever catch this same guy being an idiot some other time, he’s really going to get it” kind of thing.
I was in a similar situation when a couple of cars racing zoomed by me. A cop came from behind quickly and as he passed me he looked right at me and gave me the “pull over” gesture. All three of us sat there while cop went down the line and gathered information. He realized by then I wasn’t part of the race and just told me to go.
I don’t think the police can issue a ticket without at least collecting more information, because a ticket is connected to a person, so they would have to verify that he was the one driving.
Speed camera and red light tickets are in a different category.
This was my thought. It required special legislation to allow red light cameras (actually automated speed cameras pretending to be red light cameras too) to be attributed to the vehicle owner. With the bonus that they therefore did not produce demerits and other license consequences, since there is no proof the owner was the driver.
I suppose if the policeman followed up, they could ticket the owner and attest that he was the one driving based on the officer’s testimony, and it would be up to the defendant in court to prove the officer was incorrect.
Besides, the officer was probably happy to ignore the one guy, because chasing down a guy also evading police is probably a bigger catch than running a red light or apparently street racing. Not sure how those offenses compare, no personal experience.
I know some provinces in Canada have a “Produce the Driver” law. Rather than continue a high speed pursuit, which has resulted in injuries or death to other innocent people, some province have this law - the police will break off pursuit, but go to the owner’s home; then the owner must produce the driver, or will be subject to the same consequences as the driver would. This naturally does little for the substantial number of stolen car chases that happen.
“Officer why didn’t you pull over that guy too? He was going the same speed as me!”
“You ever go fishing?”
“Sure… I don’t know what that…”
“Ever catch all the fish?”
Sometimes you catch the fish. Sometimes they get away.
You are way overestimating the effort it takes to write a ticket. Which is refreshing because people usually underestimate what it takes to do police paperwork like search warrants. Traffic summonses are not like that. Maybe a minute out of his day. And yes tickets can be mailed.
If he looked at the driver and the officer can identify the driver from the DMV photo of the registered owner it’s enough to write the ticket. If he only has the plate and didn’t see the driver then he doesn’t have enough to write most tickets. It’s on a state by state basis as to which statutes can be issued to the registered owner. For the most part it doesn’t include moving violations.
E-ticket and other such systems have greatly cut down on the time needed. Now the information populates directly from DMV and the officer just has to add a few bits of information and the ticket is printed right in the car. Those systems are by no means universal and if the officer is still having to pen out hand written tickets it will take longer. Generally the longest part is waiting for checks on warrants to come back.
I am rather certain that the cop who pulled my sister over for driving without a license deliberately took his time as an intimidation factor. (She had her permit, but no one in the car had a license and was old enough. She had been practicing in a parking lot, and then drove a couple blocks on a real street.)